Year One (Chronicles of the One, #1)

by Nora Roberts

It is the still, small voice that the soul heeds, not the deafening blasts of doom. —William Dean Howells

“So now between the birth and the death of time, power rises—both the dark and the light—from the long slumber. Now begins the blood-soaked battle between them. And with the lightning and a mother’s birth pangs comes The One who wields the sword. The graves are many, with yours the first. The war is long, with no ending writ.”

“But there’s no blame in it, and blessings will come as magicks long shadowed breathe again. There can be joy after the tears.”

He watched her go. No hope, he thought. He’d seen no hope in her. Strength, yes, but that spark of hope had died. He understood.

How shall man escape from that which is written; How shall he flee from his destiny? —Ferdowsi

“They like motorcycles. You can get around the wrecks.”

“I’m scared,” she told him. “So scared, and yet there’s this part of me, inside me, opening and stretching, and it’s not … it’s not afraid.”

mother lode

“Strange times, Lana.” “You’ll write again. You’ll write about strange times. People need stories, Max, and the ones who tell them.

And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. —John 1:5

“Something’s coming. It all changes. Something’s coming. It always was. Something’s coming. It ends. It begins.”